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My First Encounter with Fidel Castro

I was watching a history documentary one day on PBS. It was about the Cuban Revolution. Castro had just taken over. He had his enemies lined up against a wall and shot.

Now why does this stand out in my mind?

Castro had the executions filmed so he could watch them over and over. This reminds me of another dictator.

His name was Adolph Hitler. Men who tried to assassinate Hitler were impaled on meat hooks and allowed to die slow, excruciating deaths. Their executions were filmed, so Hitler could play them over and over and get some kind of grim satisfaction.

Hitler got his training from Mussolini, whom he greatly admired. Mussolini controlled Big Business and told them what to do. He already had the press in his pocket. If you disagreed with Mussolini, he sent his black shirts after you. They would break in your house in the middle of the night and stab you to death. Hitler liked this idea so much, he sent his brown shirts to destroy his enemies.

When Hitler’s enemies started to grow, he sent them to concentration camps. The first concentration camps housed political dissidents, not Jews. Hitler was a socialist. He hated Communists because they were the biggest threat to his Socialist party.

I recently had dinner with my friend Gloria, who made a profound statement. She said, “Stalin must have had a great PR man. He murdered more people than Hitler, and Hitler comes off looking worse.” To this I replied, “What about Mao Zedong? He murdered 70 million of his own people.” If you didn’t agree with Mao, you were either killed or sent to a reeducation camp, so you could learn to be a proper Communist. Your instructor?… Hard labor.

China does most of our manufacturing, and we need those manufacturing jobs back. The Chinese aren’tour friends. They do cyberattacks against us, and they steal our technology. There are no freedoms for their people; freedoms that some Americans take for granted.

Both Socialists and Communists have murdered more people than any other form of government. Why? They hold all the power.

Now America is ready to embrace Fidel Castro. I’ll agree with Castro on one matter. Years ago he said America was more socialist than Cuba was. He’s right, and it’s getting worse.